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[AllBuggiedOut]

DS3 is 18 weeks. He's exclusively bf. He goes to bed at 7.15 ish, and has been waking only once a night (anywhere between 3.30 and 5am) for a quick feed then back to sleep for a couple of hours. This has been making me very happy!

But the wakings have been getting earlier - 2 nights ago it was 2.30, and last night 11.30 then 4.30.

Any thoughts please? I'm guessing he's getting hungrier and I need to try and feed more in the day but he's also found his thumb which while utterly adorable and very useful in terms of getting him to sleep, I do wonder if it means he's not feeding as much as he was.

Have just read that back and I'm not really sure what I'm asking - maybe for success stories of other bf babies who have done this and quickly gone back to less wakings. Or suggestions of how to get him to feed more in the day. Thanks!

[AllBuggiedOut]

Oops, apologies for no title.

[lackaDAISYcal]

They have a bit of a growth spurt around this time, so he is probably just hungry and needing more milk. My DD had been sleeping from 7 till 5ish then started waking up at around 1am at this age. i think you need to just go with the flow for a bit and it should resolve itself in a week or two. You can try getting in another couple of BFs in the day to see if that will help.

I don't think finding his thumb would make much of a difference to how much he feeds, but if he was comfort feeding I suppose it might.

I succumbed to HV pressure to wean, against my better judgement and it did no good whatsoever so after a few days I dropped the baby rice and DD started sleeping through againa few days after that.

It's very hard to do the night wakings again after a period of blissful sleep, poor you ...but like all things "this too shall pass"

[lackaDAISYcal]

oh, and the night wakings are because feeding at night stimulates your supply more due to the hormones involved in BFing being more abundant at night. clever little babies know this

[theSuburbanDryad]

My ds did this too, but I'm afraid I don't have a lovely happy ending for you (little bugger angel only now back to 1 wake up - at 17 months!)

It's utterly totally normal. With ds it was because he was getting too interested in stuff around him and was also getting ready to be going on the move (he rolled around and did commando crawling from about 6 months) so was feeding less in the day. As Daisy says, they also go through a growth spurt at this age.

[MrsJamin]

They all seem to go "backwards" at about 4 months, it is such a similar tale. DS fluctuated in night feedings for a good month between 4 and 5 months but is very predictable again now - 1 feed at 4.30-4.45 every night. This too shall pass as they say!

[AllBuggiedOut]

Thanks. He seems less interested in daytime feeds, and maybe that is, as you say TSD, because he's busy looking around!